Marxists Internet Archive

Kronstadt Izvestia

1921

NUMBER 4Sunday, March 6th, 1921

"SIRS" OR "COMRADES"

The Kronstadt seamen, and the workers with their toil-hardened
hands, have torn the helm from the hands of the Communists, and taken their
place at the wheel. With assurance and good cheer, they will lead the ship of
Soviet power to Petrograd, whence the power of toil-hardened hands must surely
capture long-suffering Russia.

But be on guard comrades. Increase your vigilance tenfold, for
the path leading you to the clear channel is strewn with submerged rocks. One
careless turn of the wheel, and the ship, with its cargo of social construction
which you value so greatly, may founder on the cliffs.

Guard the helmsman's bridge vigilantly, comrades, for enemies
already skulk near. A single negligence by you, and they will tear the wheel
away. The Soviet ship may go to the bottom, to the malicious laughter of tsarist
lackeys and servitors of the bourgeoisie.

You, comrades, now celebrate a great and bloodless victory over
the Communist dictatorship, and your enemies celebrate with you. But your
motives for joy and theirs are completely opposed. You are inspired with a
burning desire to build true Soviet power, and by the noble hope of granting the
worker freedom of labor, and the peasant the right to control his own land and
the produce of his work. They are driven by the hope of raising anew the tsarist
whip, and the privilege of generals.

Your interests are not the same, and you and they do not walk the
same path. [sic] You needed to overthrow Communist authority for the goal of
peaceful construction, and for constructive work. They need this for the
enslavement of the workers and peasants. You search for freedom; they wish to
once again throw onto you the chains of slavery. Be vigilant. Do not allow
wolves in sheep's clothing close to the helmsman's bridge.

COWARDS AND SLANDERERS

Below, we print word for word the text of a proclamation thrown
out of an airplane over Kronstadt by the Communists.

The citizens regard this provocative slander with total contempt.
The people of Kronstadt know how, and by whom, the hated power of the Communists
was overturned. They know that at the head of the Provisional Revolutionary
Committee stand elected, selfless martyrs, the best sons of the laboring people:
soldiers, sailors and workers. They will not allow anyone to seat himself on
their neck. Much less will they allow tsarist generals or White Guards. The
Communists issue the threat, "A few more hours will pass, and you will be forced
to surrender." Despicable hypocrites! Who do you want to deceive?

The Kronstadt garrison did not surrender to tsarist admirals, and
will not surrender to Bolshevist generals. Do not lie and attempt to deceive the
people, cowards! You know our strength, and our readiness to either be
victorious, or to die with honor. You know that we will never bolt, like your
commissars, loaded down with "tsarist" money, and gold extracted by the blood of
the workers.

YOU'VE GOTTEN WHAT YOU ASKED FOR

To the Deceived People of Kronstadt

Now do you see where the scoundrels have led you? You've gotten
what you asked for! From behind the cover of the SR's and Mensheviks, former
tsarist generals have already peered out with bared teeth. Kozlovsky, the
tsarist general, Captain Burkser, Kostromitinov, Shirkanovsky [sic], and other
notorious White Guards control all these Petrichenkos and Turins [sic] like
puppets on strings. They are deceiving you! They have told you that you are
struggling for "democracy." Not even two days have passed and you see that, in
fact, you struggle not for democracy, but for tsarist generals. You have placed
a new Viren on your own necks.

They tell you fairy tales, speaking as if Petrograd stood behind
you, as if Siberia and the Ukraine supported you. All this is a shameless lie!
In Petrograd the last sailor turned from you when it became known that tsarist
General Kozlovsky was running things. Siberia and the Ukraine stand firmly for
Soviet power. Red Petrograd laughs at the pathetic labors of a little bunch of
SR's and White Guards.

You are completely surrounded. A few more hours will pass, and
you will be forced to surrender. There is no bread and no heat in Kronstadt. If
you are stubborn, you will be shot down like grouse. All these General
Kozlovskys and Burksers, all these scoundrel Petrichenkos and Turins, will run
away at the last minute, of course. And you, the deceived rank and file sailors
and soldiers, where will you go? If they promise that Finland will feed you,
then they are deceiving you! Can you really have not heard how they took the
former soldiers of Wrangel away to Constantinople, and how they died there from
disease by the thousands, like flies? Just such a fate awaits you too, if you do
not come to your senses right now!

Surrender now, not losing a single minute!

Lay down your weapons, and come over to us!

Disarm and arrest the criminal ring leaders, and especially the
tsarist generals!

The one who surrenders immediately will be forgiven his guilt.

Surrender immediately!

THE PETROGRAD DEFENSE COMMITTEE

The broadcast below, received by the radio station of the
Petropavlovsk, confirms yet again that the Communists continue to deceive
not only workers and soldiers, but also the members of the Petrograd Soviet.

But they will not succeed in deceiving the revolutionary garrison
of Kronstadt and its workers.

ADDRESS TO THE WORKERS, SAILORS AND SOLDIERS OF KRONSTADT

Passed at an expanded session of the Petrograd Soviet, with the
attendance, besides the members of the Soviet, of representatives from
factory-plant committees and from the administrations of all trade unions. With
the attendance, also, of commissions and delegations elected at factories and
plants, among whom were hundreds of non-party workingmen, workingwomen, sailors
and soldiers.

A little bunch of adventurers and counter-revolutionaries has led
Kronstadt astray. Under cover of the Petropavlovsk sailors, spies sent by
French counterintelligence have unquestionably been active. They tell the
sailors that the whole matter is a struggle for "democracy," that they do not
want the shedding of blood, and that the mutiny is passing without a single
shot, for some kind of "democracy." French capitalists' spies, tsarist generals,
and their faithful helpers the Mensheviks and SR's can struggle for such
democracy.

If it had ever been fated for them to achieve success, the
exploits of this gang of thieves and traitors would inescapably have led to the
reestablishment of bourgeois power, and to bloody reprisal against the workers
and peasants.

The Mensheviks and SR's, pointing to the difficult economic
situation of the Soviet Republic, say that the Communists have been incapable of
economic construction. But who, for three years, did not allow the Russian
workers and peasants the possibility of peaceful economic construction?

If anyone worked to create hunger and economic ruin, then it was
the Mensheviks and SR's. They have supported every counterrevolutionary
rebellion, tirelessly fanned the flames of civil war in the name of
re-establishing the power of landlords and capitalists, and directed
international imperialists against Soviet Russia.

The leaders of the conspiracy say that they captured power in
Kronstadt without a shot. But this occurred only because Soviet power wished to
overcome this conflict by peaceful means. It cannot continue thus. The
international bourgeoisie is raising its head. There is exultation in the camp
of the enemies of the working class, exultation which may any day pour out in a
new campaign against Soviet Russia.

This danger threatens all our attainments. The adventurers yell
that the Communists cannot handle economic construction. With this they are
pushing Soviet Russia into the embrace of a new war.

The Petrograd Soviet and central Soviet power cannot, and do not
have the right to, allow things to come to that. The work of the
counterrevolutionaries who have been planted in Kronstadt is hopeless. They are
powerless in a dispute with Soviet Russia. The mutiny must be liquidated in the
very shortest period.

Comrade workers, sailors and soldiers, understand that you are
deceived. Understand that on you depends the bloody outcome of the adventurism
into which the White Guards have drawn you. On you depends whether these White
Guard scribblers escape their deserved punishment.

Comrades, immediately arrest the ringleaders of the
counter-revolutionary conspiracy. Immediately reestablish the Kronstadt Soviet.
Soviet power is able to distinguish unknowing, mistaken toilers from intentional
counterrevolutionaries.

Comrades, once again the Petrograd Soviet states that on you
depends whether fraternal blood does or does not spill. By the base will of
enemies of the working class, their bloody scheme will collapse on the heads of
the working class alone.

This is our last warning; time does not wait. Decide immediately,
either you are with us against the common enemy, or you will perish shamefully
and infamously together with the counterrevolutionaries.

The Petrograd Soviet of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers'
Deputies

radio station Novaia Golandiia

BROADCAST BY THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE

To all... To all... To all...

Comrade workers, soldiers and sailors! We in Kronstadt know very
well how you and your half starved children and wives suffer under the yoke of
the Communist dictatorship. We have overthrown the Communist Soviet here. The
Provisional Revolutionary Committee is currently preparing to carry out new
elections, to a new, freely elected Soviet, which will express the will of the
entire laboring populace and garrison, and not of a little bunch of insane
Communists.

Our struggle is rightful. We stand for power of Soviets, and not
parties. We stand for freely elected representatives of laborers. The current
Soviets, seized and subverted by the Communists, have always been deaf to all
our needs and demands. In answer we received only executions. Now, when the
limit to the laborers' patience has been reached, they want to shut your mouths
with miserable pittances. By Zinoviev's decree, anti-profiteer roadblock
detachments in Petrograd Province are being removed. Moscow is assigning ten
million in gold for the purchase abroad of provisions and items of the first
necessity. But we know that you cannot buy the Peter proletariat with these
pittances. We extend the hand of fraternal aid to you from Revolutionary
Kronstadt, past the heads of the Communists.

Comrades! They not only deceive you, but purposely obscure the
truth, resorting to base slander. Comrades, do not be taken in! All entirety of
power in Kronstadt is in the hands of revolutionary sailors, soldiers and
workers alone, and not of White Guards with some General Kozlovsky at head, as
the slanderous broadcasts from Moscow would have you believe.

COMPOSITION OF AND DIVISION OF DUTIES AMONG THE MEMBERSHIP OF THE
PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE

The following comrades are included in the composition of the
Provisional Revolutionary Committee: Arkhipov, Boikov, Valk, Vershinin, Kilgast,
Kupolov, Oreshin, Ososov, Pavlov, Patrushev, Perepelkin, Petrichenko, Romanenko,
Tukin and Yakimenko [sic].

From them were chosen: Comrade Petrichenko as President of the
Prov. Rev. Com., Comrades Yakimenko and Arkhipov as Comrades of the President,
Comrade Kilgast as Secretary of the Prov. Rev. Com. (he was also appointed the
management of information); the management of civilian matters was appointed to
Comrades Valk and Romanenko, of transport resources to Comrade Boikov, of the
Investigative Unit to Comrade Pavlov, and of the Produce Department to Comrade
Tukin.

KRONSTADT'S DELEGATES IN PETROGRAD

A special courier from Petrograd has now arrived in Kronstadt
with notification that the delegation sent by Kronstadt organizations arrived
there safely. The delegation informed the capitol's workers and sailors of the
events in Kronstadt, distributed the orders and leaflets issued by the Prov.
Rev. Com., and departed for other missions, in a direction which it knows.

RESOLUTION OF THE SOLDIERS OF FORT RIF

We, soldiers of fort Rif, have heard the report of
representatives of the comrade sailors, regarding the current moment, about
events in Kronstadt, and have resolved: to express full faith in the Provisional
Revolutionary Committee, and to stay at our posts and fight until there isn't a
single soldier left in the fort.

Long live the freedom of the workers and peasants.

Long live the Provisional Revolutionary Committee.

RIABOV, President of the Assembly
ANDREEV, Secretary

APPEAL TO ALL HONEST COMMUNARDS

Comrade rank and file Communists, look about, and you will see
that we have entered a terrible swamp, led by a little bunch of Communist
bureaucrats. Under a Communist mask, they have built warm nests for themselves
in our Republic. I, as a Communist, call on you to drive from us those false
Communists who incite us to fratricide. We rank and file Communists, in no way
guilty, suffer the rebukes of our comrade non-party workers and peasants because
of them. I look with horror on the situation which has been created.

Will the blood of our brothers really be spilled for the
interests of those Communist bureaucrats? Comrades, come to your senses, and do
not submit to the provocations of those Communist bureaucrats who push us to
slaughter. Drive them away, for a true Communist must not limit his ideas. He
must walk hand in hand with the entire laboring mass.

ROZHKALI [sic] of the minelayer Narov, member of the
R.C.P. (bolsheviks)

ORDER OF THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE - TO THE REVTROIKA OF THE
BUREAU OF TRADE UNIONS

In accord with the resolution of the General Conference of
representatives of seamen, soldiers and workers of March 4th, the Prov. Rev.
Com. instructs the Revtroika [Revolutionary Tribunal] of the Bureau of
Unions to carry out not later than Monday new elections to Raikoms
[Regional Committees] and union administrations, and on Tuesday the 8th to carry
out new elections to the Soviet of Trade Unions.

THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE

Do not delay, comrades. Lend your support, and enter into firm
contact with us. Demand that your non-party representatives be allowed through
to Kronstadt. Only they will tell you the entire truth, and dispel the
provocative rumors of bread from Finland and plots by the Entente.

Long live the revolutionary proletariat and peasantry!

Long live the power of freely elected Soviets!"

THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE OF KRONSTADT
March 6th, 1921, radio station of the battleship Petropavlovsk